Arts Task Force Announced

Mayor Paul TenHaken is excited to announce the members of the City’s 2020 Arts Task Force. The group will recommend a plan to improve efficiency within City government on the oversight of current obligations and provide the City with direction to best support growth of arts and culture in Sioux Falls.

“The performing and visual arts scenes in Sioux Falls has matured greatly over the past few decades. Multiple organizations and individuals have made incredible contributions and there is an appetite for more,” said TenHaken. “For our arts programming to move forward in a collaborative, unified, and focused direction, I believe now is the time to investigate how the City can more effectively and efficiently interface with community needs as it pertains to arts and culture.”

The task force will be facilitated by Janet Brown of Sioux Falls. Brown is one of the most experienced community arts initiative facilitators in the United States, having spent over 40 years working with city, county, and state government arts agencies throughout the country. Brown is past executive director of South Dakotans for the Arts and CEO/president of Grantmakers in the Arts.

“I am thrilled to be asked to help the City of Sioux Falls in assessing how it will approach cultural growth in the future. The City has a great record of supporting artists and arts groups. We have matured to the point where it’s important to find more sophisticated and systemic ways to assure continued growth for the creative sector that will benefit all who live in and visit Sioux Falls.”

Members of the task force are:

Tom Dempster, chair

Nan Baker

Brian Bonde

Tatiana Chance

Hector Curriel

Claudia Dail

Apolonia Davalos

Michael Jamison

Katrina Lehr-McKinney

Ivy Oland Dandar

Jim Speirs

Myrna Stanley

The group will have two meetings in February and March. The first meeting will be held at 4 p.m. on Friday, February 7, 2020, in the Cooper Conference Room at City Center located at 231 North Dakota Avenue. The public is invited to attend.